The group Warriors for Clean Water claimed at a press conference Friday to have uncovered evidence of increased rates of kidney cancer and other illnesses in areas served by the West Morgan-East Lawrence Water and Sewer Authority and Decatur Utilities, and urged residents in certain zip codes served by those utilities to buy and use bottled water instead.

Decatur Utilities was not among the utilities included in the EPA health advisory but is located just upstream of the West Morgan-East Lawrence system on the Tennessee River.

State officials and water authorities say the water systems are currently in compliance with the new federal standards.

"Levels of PFOA and PFOS reported to ADEM by the West Morgan East Lawrence Water System are below the health advisory levels issued by EPA to be protective of human health," said Lynn Battle of the Alabama Department of Environmental Management. "Any local health data should be shared with the [Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry], and the Alabama Department of Public Health."

"Decatur Utilities provides its customers with safe, clean drinking water that exceeds state and federal quality standards," the statement reads. "Contrary to the claim made by Mr. Mixon, DU's water treatment process is multi-staged and includes screening, chemical addition, settling, filtration, and disinfection."

The environmental group's press conference was led by Warriors for Clean Water president Ron Mixon, and a man introduced as Dr. John Rose -- whose exact credentials are unclear.

On the Warriors for Clean Water web site, Mixon said he's lived along the Tennessee River for more than 60 years, and that he suffered from heavy metal poisoning that caused neuropathy in his feet that led to one of them being amputated.

The group says its primary goal is "complete transparency of the toxins in the water, soil, fish, plants, water fowl, mussels and all living aquatic insects in Alabama rivers."

For that purpose, it has hired certified water testers and qualified laboratories to conduct water testing in north Alabama, though it's unclear if any of those results led to Friday's recommendations.

Warriors for Clean Water did not immediately respond to requests for more information about the source of their information or details about their claims.

Mixon and Rose in the press conference referenced heavy metals in the water and PFC chemicals besides PFOA and PFOS.

Companies like 3M, which manufactured PFOA and PFOS at its facility in Decatur for decades, switched to alternative chemicals with some of the same properties as PFOA and PFOS once health risks associated with those chemicals were better known. These PFCs -- or per- and poly-fluorinated compounds -- are used to make consumer products such as stain-resistant sprays like Scotchgard and non-stick coatings on cookware.

The potential health impacts of these newer replacement chemicals are not as well understood as PFOA and PFOS. Emerging research has indicated these chemicals may be harmful, but there is no clearly established link to kidney cancer or other illnesses as there is with PFOA and PFOS.

Mixon and Rose called for large-scale testing of the water and people living in primarily in Lawrence County, similar to studies conducted by the C-8 Science Panel in Ohio and West Virginia.

Those studies were funded by DuPont as part of a settlement agreement in a class-action lawsuit filed by residents of towns near the Ohio-West Virginia border, where DuPont manufactured and used PFOA (also called C-8) for more than 50 years.

The C-8 studies -- published in peer-reviewed scientific journals -- played a significant role in the EPA's 2016 decision to issue the health advisory by showing that PFOA and PFOS could cause health problems at lower concentrations than previously thought.

There are also numerous legal actions pending in the courts regarding PFOA and PFOS pollution in the Tennessee River in north Alabama.

*At publication time, Warriors for Clean Water had not responded to requests for comment and clarification on their health-related findings.

**Correction: The original version of this story stated Decatur Utilities was among the water systems included in a 2016 EPA Health Advisory. It was not. The story has been edited to correct this error.